Remaining
by It'sTimeToDance
Summary: Memories of a person can be veiled by time and what has been seen. My addition to the Sister Sue genre.
1. what's wrong is right

**Prologue**

(_then_)

A man walked into an apartment late one night, the dim lights illuminating a gold band around his finger. His eyes were silver, his hair was brown, and his face was soft. There was not much to say about this man, other then that he was with a women who was very, very drunk.

"Darry!" the women squealed, slipping from her heels and falling into his arms. He caught her, reluctantly, regularly glancing over his shoulder as though he were afraid someone would find him--find him with _her._

He looked down at her, looked down at her face that didn't seem to matter, saw only white-hot guilt that clung to his throat like a fist. Her hair was blond, feathered, wispy like cigarette smoke. Her lips were smeared pink from the remnants of bright red lipstick, and her cheeks were flushed.

"Close the door," she said, her voice throaty yet strangely manic.

The man--Darry, Darrel Curtis (_Sr _now, he reminded himself, thinking of a shrieking baby with fat pink cheeks and chubby little fingers)--obliged, a faint smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

(_later_)

A phone rang in Tulsa, Oklohoma, and Darrel Curtis Sr. answered it.

"Hello," he said pleasantly.

"Darrel?" a women's voice answered, her voice tight and restrained, almost a hiss.

Darrel recognised the voice, and a faint blush sprang to his cheeks despite himself. "I asked you not to call here, Nancy..."

"I know," she said, as though in tears. "I know--Jesus, God, I _know."_

Darrel looked over his shoulder (not for the first time) and sat down in the chair beside the phone, running a hand through his rich brown hair. His voice dropped to a whisper as the sound of a one year old squealing and a women laughing reached his ears through the walls. "It's over," he said quickly. "I told you. I told you it's over. I have a family, Nancy. I can't keep--"

_"I'm pregnant," _she sobbed, so loudly Darrel had to bring the phone away from his ear. His heart thudded against his chest rather loudly, and he became all the more paranoid of the voices in the opposite room.

He covered the receiver and put his mouth to the speaker, "Calm down--_calm down. _What do you mean your _pregnant?"_

The women's voice was pathetic at best, like a whining puppy on the street. "I can't take care of it, Darry. My parents're dead, I don't got any family, no money--I can't--"

"Get rid of it," he said, his panic welling up in his throat like bile and spitting itself from his mouth in words. "Get rid of it _now."_

She sounded aghast, horrified even. "I can't just _get rid of it."_

"Darrel?" another women's voice, soft and warm and still bright with laughter. "Darry? Who is it?"

The women on the phone began to speak again, "Dar--"

A women, pretty and with bright eyes, poked her head through the door of the kitchen.

Darrel slammed the phone onto the receiver with a loud clacking noise, getting to his feet and smiling at his wife. "Nobody, just some telemarketer."

**A/N I'm going to post this, but I'm not sure whether or not I'll finish it. No promises. I just want to add my addition to the Sister Sue genre.**


	2. i can see clearly now

(_now_)

"Will someone get the _goddamn _door?"

The doorbell rung again. And again.

Two-Bit Mathews sipped from his beer bottle and stared at the television, reruns of Lucy and Road Runner and Mickey and Goofy, intentionally blocking out the high pitch ringing.

"Son of a _bitch, _Two-Bit," Soda moaned from the other room, and the creak of the bed added to the strange chorus of cartoon sounds and the door bell. When he stomped into the room, his hair was ruffled, clean of grease, and his shirt was half buttoned, giving way to a yellow stained wife beater. His jaw was tight and his teeth were clenched.

Two-Bit burped. "Yer closer," he said.

Soda mumbled under his breath. _"Lazy shit..."_

He swung open the door as the onslaught of rings reached a crescendo, his irritation growing. "Holy shit, _what?"_

A girl stood at the door.

She was one of Those Girls. Those too-plain-to-be-interesting, not too skinny not too fat girls that sit behind you in English that you sort of know her name but not really--

"Uh..." she said, startled at the snapped greeting.

Soda shook his head and impatiently brushed a stray lock of hair from his face, pulling his shirt straight and clearing his throat. "Erm, sorry. Can I, uh, help you?"

Soda's head ached, and the world was masked behind a blurred veil. The girl spoke slowly, as though she had just woken up on the Curtis' doorstep.

"I...does a Darrel Curtis live here?"

Soda squinted at the girl. About nineteen, maybe twenty, with hair the color or sand and skin ashen grey, the kind you see on people who don't go outside all that often. She wore a simple, shapeless sweater, no design on it and no obvious signs of being cheap nor expensive, and jeans with ragged holes on the button cuffs, browned and frayed. She looked like she could _maybe _be pretty, if the light was right.

Soda, for a moment, entertained the idea that maybe Darry _was _getting some action.

"Sure does," he sniffed, leaning against the door way.

A moment of silence passed, Soda purposely letting it stretch, before she spoke again.

"Is he, uh, here? Now?"

Soda's breath tasted like stale beer, and he sucked his teeth in disdain. "Nope."

Silence.

Soda felt like he should say something, and he felt Two-Bit's eyes on his back.

The girl stood there, strangely firm in her uncertainty.

Soda popped his lips as another moment went by. "Can I leave a message?"

The girl had a bag, he noticed, a dirty thing with buttons the size of a baby's fist and threadbare straps that frayed where they met her shoulders. She toyed with them.

"My mother's name is Nancy Davis," she said, looking at Soda's shoes. "My name's Barbara..."

Soda did not recognise either name (actually, he knew a Davis, got shot up three years ago, and he knew something like three different Nancys, but...) and the glowing sun sent shooting pain up his temple. He shuffled on his heels impatiently. "Yeah, okay?"

The girl blushed. "Okay, yeah. What I mean is," her voice was thin, like she was trying to find the words. When they did come, they sounded more like vocal vomit.

"I think Darrel Curtis is my father."

**A/N Shocker.**


	3. its all fun and games until

_--darry--_

_(now)_

Darry chewed on a toothpick as he hammered at a rusty nail, driving it deeper and deeper into a soggy piece of wood stuck onto somebody's roof. The owner of the roof, an old women with overlapping skin and hair the color of blue Popsicle stained teeth. Every time she moved her head, little red lines burst from the creases of her neck like angry, bleeding worms. Her eyes bore into his back, and he thought she _might actually _burn a hole through him--

A phone rang, one of the new cordless ones that sat on the picnic table beside the women. Darry turned gingerly on the ladder, careful not to let the plank of wood slide down to the unnaturally green grass. She squinted at him, her thin lips and yellowish teeth twisted in a snarl. Her hand moved cautiously towards the phone and clicked a button. "Mm?"

Darry watched her face distastefully for a moment before he noticed the women's face melt into a none-too-happy grimace of epic proportions.

She looked at him. "Yer name Darrel?"

Darry held on tighter to the ladder, "Yes ma'am."

The women's voice was like a steaming bull's. "'S yer boss. Says it's an emergency."

Darry felt like he would throw up.

He clumsily climbed down from the ladder and slowly dragged his legs through the dirt, taking the phone from the women and pressing it to his year. "Mister Johnson?"

The familiar grunt of his employer hit his ears like a plank. "Got a call from yer brother down here, goin' on about how something happened and he needs you to call 'im. Told him you were on a job, you'd be back soon enough. That kid can snarl like a damn bear, you know that? Telling me how I better call you or--well, you get the idea."

Darry's heart was like a fist, trying it's hardest to crack his ribs out of his skin. "I'm sorry, sir. Won't happen again."

The sound of crunching chips between two rows of teeth sounded like static. "Yeah, well, just get it sorted out. I'm sending 'nother car to the house, so's you can see what all the crap's about."

"Yeah," Darry breathed. "Thankyou, sir. Yeah."

His boss hung up and Darry turned to the women. "Can I make a call."

The women scrunched her nose at him. "Nothing long distance. Make it fast."

Darry punched in the number (that he knew not only by heart, but by finger reflex and button tone) and waited.

It was answered on the third ring.

"What the _hell," _came Soda's voice, "have you been _doing?"_

_(ponyboy)_

_(now)_

When I walk into the house, I don't expect to find a girl sitting on the couch with an untouched coke and a bag that looked like it came out of granny's knitting needles.

I stop at the door, with my pack still tight around my shoulder, and stare.

The girl glances at me, a blush rising to her cheeks and a look that suggest this happens often, and opens her mouth, saying nothing.

"Who're _you," _I scoff, just because she doesn't look like anybody either of my brothers would consider (Darry, I'm pretty sure, is a-sexual, and Soda goes more for the made-up fake blond haired gigglers that roam the Dingo), and even if she was, they wouldn't ever bring her _here, _to our _house, _with Looney Tunes on the TV and a cold soda in her hands, without telling me.

The girl starts to stand up, when I hear Soda's voice in the kitchen.

_"_Soda!"I say, not quite a shout but damn close, taking another look at the girl as she gets to her feet and continues to gap with empty words. ("I--I'm just, your brother said--") _"Soda!"_

Soda's on the phone, gabbing away like he's bargaining for the house or something, his face red as a beet and his eyes wild with confusion. His arms are almost flailing.

"I don't _know," _he hisses, "She just comes in here and tells me yer her fucking _father--"_

_"What?" _

_--barbara--_

My skin feels cold. _I _don't really feel cold, but my skin does. Like I'm wearing a blanket dipped in ice.

The kid came in through the door and looked like he wanted to bite my head off, all gaping and red-faced. Like he couldn't believe I had the _nerve--_

Oh, wait. I don't.

He asked who I was, spitting the words at me like I was a cockroach. "Who're _you?"_

I started to answer, holding the coke the other kid, Soda, gave me. I thought I should get up, but he just stormed off into the kitchen and out of sight.

I shouldn't have come, is the first thing I think. I really shouldn't have.

"_What?"_

All voices come to a halt.

Almost laughably, I think. Like a sitcom.

I consider leaving--really consider it--and letting them forget I ever showed up. They were obviously semi-happy before I showed up. Obviously.

"Ponyboy," Soda says from the other side of the wall, "go to yer room."

Ponyboy? Did he just call that boy _Ponyboy? _Like the _horse?_

I really should leave...

"Who's who's father? That _girl _out there? _Who's _her father_?"_

Oh, shit.

The conversation me and mom had--

_Mom sighs and rubs her eyes in her palm, her sunken face almost grey with age. "Honey..." she whispers. "Why do you bring this up _now, _of all times?"_

_I struggle with my suitcase, overflowing with clothes and college sweaters. I don't know how to answer her, because I don't know the answer myself. Just a sudden want, a sudden emptiness, that became too much to bear. _

_"Mom," I say, slowly. "I just want to know..."_

_She looks up, sharply, like she always does when an unpleasant conversation goes on for more then a few moments. "Am I not enough for you? Am I really _that _awful, Barbara?"_

_I look down._

--before I left, wondering if I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, if I'm asking for more then I deserve.

The arguing reaches a crescendo, the boy's voice and Soda's voice mixing with another, smaller voice that sounds as though it's coming from the phone, until finally they all halt their sentences at once and leave the air uncomfortably silent.

Mutter mutter mutter. Hiss hiss hiss.

The boy is at the doorway, staring at me.

"Hi," he says, like a bad taste in his mouth.

I open my mouth, realizing how dry it is. "...hi."

He chews his lips, "I think your mistaken."

For some reason, I don't expect the calm older-then-he-is statement from the boy. My hands itch, wanting to open my bag and get my car keys and getting the hell out of this town and and and.

And.

And what?

Go back home?

To your _mother?_

And.

And tell her what?

That you fucked up?

That she was right?

"I think you got the wrong guy," the bony continues. "I wish you the best of luck in finding your father, but he's not here."

I've obviously done something very wrong, by the look in his eye.

I have a defense, the lawyer in me says, I have documents.

I think.

What if I left them in the car?

Would they let me back in if I went out to get them?

Please be there, documents.

"Uh," I say. "I, um. Look, I have a birth certificate, and some pictures, and--"

"The only Darrel Curtis that lives here," he says slowly, like I'm a particularly stupid child, "is twenty years old, and I _doubt _he was doing anything the time you were born but learning how to walk."

_Fuck you, kid._

"Pony," Soda says, walking in and rubbing his eyes, "don't be so goddamn rude. Go do yer homework're something."

The boy scrunches his nose like I smell like bad fish and props himself against the door frame, so he's only slightly shorter then Soda. "What'd Darry say?"

The other boy, who introduced himself as...Two-Bit (or something), pokes his head through the door as well, looking like he might throw up from anxiety. "Look, Soda, this is real interesting and all," he says, "but I really gotta be somewhere--"

"Will you get the _hell _outta here, Two-Bit?" Soda snaps, tossing Two-Bit a shrill glare.

The boy looks like he could punch something. "What did Darry _say?"_

"Darry didn't say _nothing. _Go do yer homework."

Pony opens his mouth to say something. So does Soda. And Two-bit. And me.

Mom was right.

_(then)_

Nancy screamed, punched, kicked, as agony ripped through her body and sweat burst from her skin and down her face. The doctors' reassurences and the nurses' soothing voices did nothing to calm her, did nothing to stop this pain this torment this _terror. _Only went through one ear and out the other without making a stop at her brain. Her throat began to throb, to add to the horror, as she shrieked obscenities at the doctors and nurses and the living child forcing it's way outside her like bulldozer through a forest of trees, ripping and breaking and oh God oh God oh God.

Suddenly, the pain lessened, the doctor, the one propped in front of her, spoke so firm and so gentle that she knew only good things could follow. "Just one more push. Come on, just one more."

No no no, she screamed to herself. No no no more pushes. No more baby no more aching back and swollen ankles and constant, flaring shame like a scarlett letter branded on her pale forehead and ringless finger. No more of this, no more no more no more.

A sudden cry, a sudden shriek woke her from her pain induced reverie, one to rival hers, one that knocked her back to _now _(whenever that was).

"It's a baby girl," the doctor said warmly, his face glowing at the sight of the shriveled, bloody thing twisting in his arms. "A beautiful baby girl."

Why was he happier then she was?

He handed it to her, so gently, like it were a precious diamond. The twisted face reminded her of old images of aliens she'd seen on a flier.

"What's her name," the nurse said with a smile in her voice, like it _came _with one.

"Barbara," Nancy said for-longingly, thinking of her mother and her scornful, disappointed glare. "After my mother."

They took it soon after, to wash it off. A women in a nurses' outfit came over with a clipboard. "Who should I list as the father?"

She said is almost smugly, like she knew there was none, that this child was a little bastard that would be raised as such. _Ha, little whore, _her tone said.

Old bitch.

Just for something to say, to prove the old women wrong, she said with a glare of her own. "Darrel Curtis."

* * *

**A/N I kind of want to take every cliche in the Sister Sue genre and put it in a way that works. I was gonna do that with my other fic **_**The Awkward Kind, **_**but I lost all the documents and don't feel like re-writing them...**

_**Sorry if that ended kind of abruptly, but I wanted to get to a point.**_


	4. tumbling down, down, down

_barbara_

_(now)_

If you've never seen two brothers bicker before, and you were looking at Soda and Pony go at it, it would be reasonable to assume one of them would end up strangling the other. (and my money was on Soda, if it means anything)

"I wanna know what the _fuck _Darry said," Pony was hissing, standing like a pissed off scarecrow at the end of the small room, right by the doorway to the kitchen. It didn't look real intimidating, and I'm sure he knew it; he's a small kid, skinny with only wiry traces of muscle popping out from the skin like extended veins. I start thinking of my biology class, for some reason, and how the body produces blood every second (or something), and how the veins keep it going to the heart, going to all the limbs, going going going, and that if you cut a vein it all blows out like Mentos in a bottle of Cola.

Don't know why I'm thinking this. Like I'm always thinking stuff like it when people start screaming at each other. Don't know.

So, Soda tells him to go to his room again, tells him he sure as hell had enough of this crap and _why can't he listen for once _and Pony gets this real quick look on his face, like he's been slapped or something. But it's gone in a second, hardly a flash of nothing.

Hardly.

And then Two-Bit, who, despite his discomfort, hasn't left yet, paralyzed in his step. It makes me think that maybe this is a _real _strange sight, these two fighting. Maybe it has never, ever happened before, and Two-Bits too shocked to even move. Maybe that's my fault.

No, that's _probably _my fault.

And then they start talking like I ain't even there--"I wanna know what the _fuck _she's doing telling us Darry's her damn _father_"--and I think:

_Yeah, this one's definitely my fault._

Not alot of things have ever been my fault, and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

I've never started a fight, never gotten two guys or anything all macho on each other 'cause of some love triangle (or something), never broke anything or started anything. Never spread rumors or done anything to piss someone off. Don't have any sisters or brothers or anything (or maybe I do, don't know). I stay to myself, keep as quiet as possible. Never once have I been able to say something was _really, _no connections involved, my fault. Never, in all my nineteen years, have I done something as _simple _as this and have it turn into something _this _messed up--

--but I ain't making much sense, am I?

So, I start to get a bit sweaty, the kind you get when your teacher calls on you for an answer that you don't know, and I think--_think--_that I might throw up. But then I realize I haven't eaten and I get hungry. Then I'm nauseous and hungry and all at once and now I fully understand the _life is crap _phrase my friend Becky throws around all the time.

I start to fling the papers and all that back into my bag, hoping to make a quiet exit.

In the middle of his sentence, steaming like a chimney, he catches me inching to the door. "Pony, _why _you gotta do this now--where do you think _your _going?"

I don't expect this, and I try to tell myself he don't mean to sound like he wants to gut my intestines out, but it really _really _sounds that way.

He kind of catches himself, like a dog would when he sees he growled at the wrong passerby.

"Ugh," he says, by way of conversation. "Uh, sorry."

"No," I say, back words walking over to the door. "I'm sorry, sorry. I shouldn't have come here. You can just, you know, forget I was here--"

I'm still thinking about what Pony said, that the Darrel Curtis was my age.

Pony frowns at me. "Yeah, we will."

And, on that note, I scoot past Two-Bit and walk to my car, still wondering why anybody would name a boy Pony.

XxXxX

_(then)_

"Mommy?"

A women with pale, faded blue hair and dull eyes looked up listlessly from the television. Her pink uniform was stained, and her scuffed white roller blades sat in a pile beside the coffee table. "Mm?"

"Can you help me with something?" the women's daughter asked, poking her head through the doorway and clutching a piece of paper in her hand.

The women let out a long, hefty sigh, adjusting the table fan as it whirred haphazardly against her skin. "Baby," she breathed, "I've had a long day."

"It's for school."

_Fuck school--_"Let's see it," she sighed.

The girl walked quietly around the doorway and stood beside her mother, holding out the paper and waiting.

The women took the paper and glanced it over. "A family tree?"

The daughter bit her lip gently and wrung her hands together. "Mrs. Nixon said we got to know where we come from."

The women went limp against the couch and fanned herself as the fan sputtered and died. "Sweetie..." she said quietly. "Hun, you've met yer gramma. Polish, remember? You know that. Write about that--"

"--but it says I need my dad's side too--"

"--_write about yer gramma, Barbara."_

A smack of a sentence, like the cracking of a whip.

The girl walked out.

_A/N This chapter isn't really like I wanted it to be, but when is it ever?_


	5. author's note

Hey, guys. Sorry I haven't updated anything in...well, in a while. I've taken a break from writing for a while. I'm starting my freshman year of high school this year, and I really need to get my shit together. This is gonna be mass-posted, so I'll post my individual messages for each story:

The Unfortunate Truth: I started this when I was twelve, so needless to say I've grown a bit since then. I do have the entire things plotted out in my head, and one day I do intend to finish, but for now consider this on indefinite hold.

Gone Baby Gone: This one I actually almost finished with. I typed most of it on my friend's computer, so it might take a while to get to it...but still. I'll get there.

It's Kind of a Funny Story: I feel really guilty about this one, because I promised myself I'd finish it...Anyway. I'll probably finish this during my next fanfiction binge.

Invasion: I SHOULD BE DOING THIS! This was meant as a comic relief, something to do when I'm bored...I'm bored SO OFTEN! I SHOULD WORK ON THIS! Feel free to cyber-smack me.

Soliloquy: I seriously wrote all the stories for this but, again, on friend's computer.

Playing With Fire: Consider this one up for adoption.

Remaining: Will finish during next binge. I actually like this one.

A Comedy of Errors: No one seems to care much for this one, so consider it dropped till further notice.

The Awkward Kind: Not feeling this one, I have to say. I pictured in my head a John Hughes like angsty romance with a tragic end, but, well...I'm not John Hughes.

No Such Things: This is completly out of my comfort zone and I have no idea why I started it. Up for adoption.

Also, I have a few stories in the works...all Twilight, aparently. Two are AU and one's a three-shot for New Moon. Again, I consider fanfiction like drinking: if your not addicted, you only do it when your unhappy. I am not addicted, and I'm pretty content at the moment. As you all know, I tend to have time periods where I update at a ridiculous pace, and then long stretches of time where I do nothing. Rest assured, however, I will not be content forever and as soon as I'm engulfed in an overwhelming wave of depression, most of these stories will be updated, if not finished. And I will post the new stories I have for Twilight. And we will all live happily every after.

The End


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